Tamura stood in the center of Vayrik's quarters, arms crossed, eyes blazing with ambition and impulsiveness. Mugen leaned against the wall, silent but coiled and in position to either kill or stand down depending on the conversation. The room was dim, lit only by a single lantern Vayrik kept lit with his mana that flickered with the tension between them.
"We're not asking," Tamura said. "We're telling you. We're getting the others out." Vayrik didn't flinch. He poured himself a drink, slow and deliberate. "You think I don't want that?" he said. "I've watched for years of what that woman has done and for years I've wanted to burn that estate of hers to the ground." Mugen stepped forward. "Then why wait?" Vayrik turned towards him. "Because if you move too soon, you'll be killing your own. The Mourncrest house isn't just Vayra. Those kids are bound by collars, contracts, and who Gods know what else. Tamura's jaw tightened. "We'll cut carefully."
"You'll cut recklessly," Vayrik said. "Unless you let me play this my way." Vayrik laid out a deck of cards on the table. Each one shimmered faintly---enchanted, old, and dangerous. "She's hosting a private guild match. High stakes. Reputation, coin, and leverage." He held up a playing card as he looked Tamura and Mugen. "I win, I get the funds to start the guild. I get influence. And I get you two officially." Mugen raised an eyebrow. "You're gambling us?"
"I'm winning your freedom guys," Vayrik said. "And if I lose, you're still hers. But if I win... we start pulling threads." Tamura stared at the cards. "You better win." "Kid. If you knew me, you'd know that I never lose." Vayrik said with his smile bigger than ever.
That night, Tamura sat alone, staring at the moon through the cracked window of his room.
Not just any moon. Kira, the Pale Witness.
Serekhal's oldest celestial body, said to watch over oaths made in silence. He remembered the voice. Soft. Broken. Kind. Sometimes.
Freya. The last "special asset." The girl who fed him during his healing. Who changed his clothes while he lay unconscious. Who smuggled extra food and whispered truths about Xathia, the city gilded in lies. She had told him of the Velari caste, the hidden bloodlines that ruled through contracts and collars. She had spoken of the Treaty of Thorns, and how it didn't protect anyone. But that it only preserved the illusion of peace.
He remembered what she whispered when she thought he was asleep.
"If you wake up, promise me you'll burn this cage. Not just for you. For all of us."
Tamura clenched his fists. The moonlight caught the glow of his marks, faint, but growing. "I swear I'll fight for you, Mugen, and everyone else until my dying breath."
Mugen studied the game mechanics, memorizing card patterns, enchantment triggers, bluff tells. He started to fall in love with the art of the game and the stakes he could take for a huge win excited him. Tamura trained silently, methodically. He learned from books and watching other people fight in public. He was refining his strength and his technique. Vayrik watched as if he was witnessing something not of this world.
The night before the match, Tamura and Mugen sat on the rooftop again. The stars quiet once more. "You ready?" Mugen asked. Tamura nodded. "She doesn't get to keep us. Any of us." Mugen smiled faintly. "Then let's hope Vayrik wins." Tamura looked up. "And if he doesn't?"
"Then we burn the fucking table."
The next day, Match Day.
The Morncrest guild hall was everything that it was rumored to be. The hall was carved from obsidian and veined with mana pure glass. Light refracted unnaturally, casting shadows that moved slower than the people who made them. Tamura walked beside Vayrik, his hands twitching with excitement, Mugen trailing behind with a satchel encoded glyphs and counter-charms. Vayra was already seated. Her smile was soft. Her eyes were knives. She dressed in silver and what appeared to be the skulls of some of the children she used to own tied to her waist. She was accessorizing her kills as if this sick idea of her fashion was the reward for "adopting" those children. She wanted to throw the brothers off their game. And it seemed to be working. "This sick bitch." Tamura muttered. "Calm yourselves. The both of you." Vayrik said all while not even looking in their direction. His eyes remained focused on Vayra.
"You brought my pets back home? How kind of you," she said to Vayrik. "Let's see if they bite." Tamura didn't flinch. Mugen didn't blink. Vayrik smiled. "Only if you keep trying to play dirty."
The cards shimmered with enchantments, each one tied to a minor fate thread. Winning wasn't just about numbers. It was about reading the weave. Vayrik played conservatively. Vayra baited him with false tells. Tamura watched her fingers. Mugen watched her mana flow. "She's masking her aura," Mugen whispered. "She's hiding something." Tamura's mark pulsed once. "She's not just bluffing. She's anchoring." Midway through the second hand, a courier arrived, masked, silent, bearing a sealed scroll. Vayra opened it. Her smile faltered. Tamura caught a glimpse of the seal. House Mourncrest. But not her own. Vayra is being watched. By someone of her own bloodline. Vayrik leaned in. He began thinking to himself.
"Pressure's building up. She's slipping."
As the third hand began, Tamura's mark flared. Not violently, but resonantly. The cards in Vayra's hand shimmered with a glyph Tamura recognized. The same glyph Freya had on her hand. Tamura looked on in horror as he finally started putting it together. Vayra wasn't worried from the start because the bitch is using Freya as an energy source and a bargaining chip. Tamura's tone fell dead. "She's binding Freya to the deck." Mugen's eyes widened. "That's illegal. Soul binding is outlawed in Xathia from what I learned from Vayrik." Vayrik paused. Then smiled. "Let's raise the stakes shall we?"
Vayrik placed his final wager. It benefits the group for the win. But Tamura has no plans of accepting the losing conditions.
"If I win, I take these two on top of the eight thousand gold. And you hand over the ledger of every child you've sold and have kept on your estate." Vayra's eyes narrowed. "And if I win?"
Tamura leaned forward.
"You won't."
The cards were dealt in silence.
Vayra's fingers moved gracefully with each draw, her smile returning, tight, venomous, confident. Vayrik's face was unreadable, but Tamura could feel the tension in his mana. Mugen sat beside him, eyes locked on the glyphs flickering faintly across the cards.
"She's using Freya's soul to thread into the cards," Mugen whispered. "It's woven into deck. That's why your mark reacted." Tamura's jaw clenched. He was starting to remember when he was given the news that Freya was gone. And then something clicked. "Vayrik," Tamura said in a panic. "She's using illusion magic to shift the cards."
Vayrik played his hand. Three cards, one enchanted with a minor fate glyph. Vayra countered with a full spread, her cards glowing faintly a light winter blue. Tamura's mark flared. Not in pain. In recognition. The glyph on her central card was Freya's name, twisted and bound as a joker card. Tamura stood. "You still have her, don't you?" Vayra stared. "You used her mana to cheat the system. To win. Where is she? Where the hell is Freya?" The room fell silent. Then without uttering a signal word. Vayrik's eyes began to glow and then he shifted a sigil on the table he'd carved into the underside before the start of the game. "Reveal." The cards exploded in light. Shattered parts of memory were shown to all in the room. Freya's voice echoed through the hall. "I gave you my help. You took everything from me. You took my sister. You took my power. My dignity." The enchantments shattered. The cards collapsed. Vayra's deck had vanished, indicating she had lost by forfeit. Her aura flickered violently, and the seal on her wrist cracked. Tamura's mark surged, violet flames turned crimson, dancing across his skin. "You don't own us," he muttered. "You never did."
Guards rushed in. Guild members stood frozen. Vayrik rose slowly, eyes gleaming. "The match is void. The contract is broken. And that ledger is mine." Vayra staggered, blood dripping from her palm where the soul-binding seal had ruptured. "You think I'm just going to let you people leave with all that is mine?" She hissed. Tamura without any hesitation leaped on to the table before even Vayrik could react. He crouched down to meet Vayra's gaze. His eyes. Even though Vayra was clearly stronger, something in Tamura's eyes, it screamed. Demonic. "You're wrong," Tamura said with his voice distorting with every word laced with ferousity that could only be compared to that of a rabid dog. "I'm allowing you to keep your business. Your clients. Your house," He looked into Vayra's eyes with pure malice. "Your life."